1 Corinthians

Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians

1* Paul, a chosen apostle of Christ Jesus through God’s will, and Brother Sosthenes, 2 to God’s church at Corinth, men sanctified in Christ Jesus, holy men called,—with all who in every place invoke the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, theirs and ours,— 3 grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

4 I am always thanking God for you on account of God’s grace given to you in Christ Jesus, 5* that in everything you have been enriched in him, in all the gift of speech and in all knowledge, 6 as the testimony of the Christ has become a settled thing among you, 7 so that you do not come short in any grace while you await the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will also settle you to be entirely blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, through whom you were called into solidarity with his son Jesus Christ our Lord.

10 But I urge you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, all to say the same thing and not to have rifts among you, but to be welded into the same mind and the same sentiments. 11 For it was stated to me about you by Chloe’s people, my brothers, that there are discords among you. 12 I mean this: that each of you is saying “I am a Paul man,” “And I am an Apollos man,” “And I am a Cephas man,” “And I am a Christ man”; 13 the Christ is broken up! Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized into Paul’s name? 14 I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you but Crispus and Gaius, 15 so as not to have someone say you were baptized into my name. 16 And I did baptize Stephanas’s family too; after all, I do not know whether I baptized anybody else. 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to bring the gospel; not in wisdom of language, in order that the Christ’s cross may not be nullified.

18 For speech about the cross is foolishness to those who are headed for destruction, but to us the saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will discredit.” 20 What becomes of a philosopher? of a scholar? of a scientist? did not God make the world’s wisdom foolish? 21 For since in God’s wisdom the world had not through wisdom known God, God was pleased to save believers through the foolishness of the preached message— 22 since Jews ask for tokens and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach a crucified Christ, to Jews a thing unmentionable, and to Gentiles foolishness, 24 but to the called themselves, Jews and Greeks both, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God; 25 because what is foolish of God’s is wiser than men, and what is weak of God’s is stronger than men. 26 For, brothers, look at your calling, that it is not a case of many who are wise in a mortal sense, many powerful, many aristocratic, 27 but God chose the foolish parts of the world in order to shame the wise men, and God chose the weak parts of the world in order to shame the strong parts, 28* and God chose the lowborn parts and the scorned parts, the nothings, in order to supersede with them the somethings, 29 so that no mortal should boast in the presence of God. 30 And from him you are something in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 in order to have it as is written, “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”